After a bitter failure in the presidential election, the Les Républicains (LR) party lost nearly half of its deputies in the legislative elections. Even the inability of the presidential coalition to obtain a majority proves to be very little consolation for the formation, notes the Financial Times, because if Emmanuel Macron cannot compose without the conservative party, “the risk increases that voters will end up considering LR as the second-rate partner in a de facto coalition with an unpopular president”.
“If we fail to rebuild a credible centre-right, we run the risk of seeing Marine Le Pen gain power”, warns Michel Barnier, former minister and former candidate for the Republican primary, interviewed by the British newspaper. While it must choose a new president in December, the party is confronted with an extreme right more powerful than ever, whose hard line on questions like immigration attracts its right wing. Other elements of the party look conversely to the center, so Macron has poached more than one MP since 2017. In the eyes of the Financial Timesthe members of the Republicans are quite divided, disagreeing on questions of strategy as well as substance.
A possible split
“Two of the party’s leadership candidates symbolize its extremes”, says the newspaper. On the one hand, Aurélien Pradié, who considers questions of immigration and identity as marginal and wants a party more focused on the economic concerns of the French. On the other Éric Ciotti, who advocates “a tougher line on immigration and crime”. While Pradié evokes the possibility of a split, Ciotti implies that once elected at the head of the movement, he would know how to recreate its unity.
This will have to wait for the December election. Until then, “LR’s fate depends in part on how he manages the parliamentary dynamics of Macron’s second term”. Desiring to set itself up as “opposition constructive”, the party refused a coalition with the president. Yet last month the group overwhelmingly backed the government’s bills. It therefore remains, as Annie Genevard, interim president of the party, pointed out, to distinguish herself from the center without falling into systematic opposition.